When she had finished saying
all she had to say on that point, I presented your side of the question;
and I assure you, sir, that I clapped on it a very bright light, so that
if she did not see its strong points the fault must be in her own eyes.
As the event proved, there was nothing the matter with her eyes. I shall
not try to repeat what I said, but I began by explaining to her the
nature of your work, and showed her how impossible it was for you to
write about foreign countries without referring to their people, and how
you could not speak of the people without mentioning their peculiar
manners and customs, and that this story was nothing more nor less than
an interweaving of some of the characteristics of the people of Sicily
with the descriptions of the country. Thus much I inferred from your
remarks about the story.
"I persisted that, although such characteristics had no connection with
the life of the sisters of the House of Martha, they were a part of the
world which you were describing, and that it could be no more harm for a
sister, working for wages and the good of the cause, to assist in that
description than it would be for one of them to make lace to be worn at
a wedding, a ceremony with which the sisters could have nothing to do,
and which in connection with themselves they could not even think about.
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